


The Good in Me

by angstyninja



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Other, Sad Ending, the second chapter has the happy ending, the third chapter has an alternate, there is two endings, where the major character death applies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-12-06 19:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18224270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstyninja/pseuds/angstyninja
Summary: Keith doesn’t find a monster. Instead, he only finds Jake. What he doesn’t know, is that in this moment, they are the exact same thing.





	1. Chapter 1

Jake was tired, the kind of tired that seeps down through your skin and into your bones. He had hardly slept in the days since the attack, couldn’t help wondering if he had just been there. If he had never left the Hornets, would the creature been able to kill all that it did? Or would he have been able to save his friends from their gruesome fate. Dani tries to keep him company, keep his mind off the what ifs, but she was distant, not all there. He doesn’t bother her about it. Everyone had a lot on their minds lately.

  
After a quick trip there and back, he found that he couldn’t even go to the slopes to ease his mind. Not when every corner of the resort reminded him of his time with the Hornets, of people who he would never get to speak to again. He couldn’t even draw upon good memories of their times together, could only see the blood. The carnage. The bodies of people who he used to laugh with. It made his stomach turn to think about.

  
He wants to talk the Hornets out of their plan of revenge, but knew his protest would just drive them harder. They didn’t trust him anymore. He knows that they are strong people, Hollis especially, knows it in the same way that he knows this was not a battle for ordinary people to get involved in.  
Perhaps he was just being protective. He couldn’t stand the idea of any more of them getting hurt after he saw what the abomination did to the others. There was nothing he could say though, nothing that would make any of the Hornets listen.  
He doesn’t remember leaving the lodge, just remembers hearing the sound of the Pine Guard discussing plans with the Hornets and feeling so ill he has to get out. Away from the talk of war.

  
It hadn’t been cold when he left, but now a frigid wind is whipping through the trees around him. A storm was coming, he could feel it tugging at his stomach; the earth’s way of asking for some of his power. He usually didn’t mind helping nature on her way, but tonight, he brushes it away, moving forwards through the woods. He didn’t have any energy to give anyone.

  
The wind howls louder at his denial, but he ignores it and moves forwards, cutting through a line of trees and into a small clearing. He almost stumbles in surprise when he finds a petit figure hunched over in the snow. She isn’t wearing any of her normal winter gear, and she’s shaking because of it. He can tell she’s not wearing her disguise either, even before she turns her head towards him, revealing sharp, pointed teeth and bright yellow eyes.

  
“Dani?” he calls, shuffling through the building snow towards her. “It’s getting cold, you should go to the lodge.”

  
She doesn’t respond, staring at him with cloudy eyes, looking, but not really seeing him. He meets her gaze, watching as her pupils seem to expand, quickly engulfing her eyes with a inky blackness. It’s then, when he is only a few feet away, that she rises, jerking to her feet and lunging towards him. He doesn’t even have time to move away, feeling her finger nails tear through the thin fabric of his hoodie and into his arms.

  
“Dani!” he shouts, grabbing her by the shoulders to stop her from biting his neck.

  
She struggles, neck muscles cording as she bears her teeth and snaps at him, driving her nails into his skin to strengthen her grip. Jake digs his feet into the snow, trying to force her back, heart pounding in shock. He’d heard the murmurs of the Pine Guard, but Dani had been acting so normal he’s brushed it off as coincidences. The force behind her arms makes him regret his trusting heart.

  
They struggle there, Jake desperately trying to force her off him before she could pin him down. If she managed that, there was nothing he could do to stop her. The cold was clearly making her tired though, sapping her energy. She seems to be losing her drive, teeth beginning to chatter, the blackness in her eyes drawing backwards into her pupils until she releases him.

  
“Jake!” She hisses, shivering violently now under the howl of the wind. “The monster, it wants a more suitable host! We need to get out of here before-”

  
She doesn’t finish her sentence, frozen in horror as she spots the scratches on Jake’s arm turning black, watches as the darkness sweeps through his veins. It was too late.  
A gasp tears from Jake’s lips, his usually bright blue eyes turning black before snapping back again as he struggles for control. Ice was forming from where his feet touch the ground, creeping along the snow and forming small, sharp points.

  
“Dani, I got-I got this, just go get the Pine Guard,” he pants, convulsing so violently he falls to his knees.

  
Around him, the ice spreads, the points growing into thick, jagged icicles, sharp enough to kill. Their points reach outwards, towards her, but also inward, to where Jake is fighting with the creature. As if he was creating a cage to keep himself in. Dani has to scramble back to avoid being impaled, sliding on the suddenly glazed service beneath her feet.

  
Around them, the wind begins to scream, trees bending under the force of it, hail showering them with hurricane force. The pellets were the size of marbles and Dani cries out as one catches her in the head so hard her teeth rattle. The temperature is the next thing to change, dropping unnaturally fast to almost unbearable degrees. Dani could feel her already cold hands beginning to numb, finger tips turning white. If she stayed, she would freeze.

  
“I’m sorry,” she says, before turning her back on her best friend and running for her life.

  
Behind her, Jake is making choked noises, like he can’t quite breathe, clawing at his neck with unsteady hands. They kept jerking away, as if he was trying to reach out to grab something to stabilize himself, to hold himself back. There was nothing to grab though, and his hands snap back to wrap around his scarf. The charm that kept him human. It tears under his unyielding grasp, and Jake transforms.

  
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

  
Less than a kilometer away, Keith is hiking through the trees, shivering, but resolutely not turning back to the lodge. He could hardly stand sitting in on the battle plans, unable to bring himself to speak during them. How could he give suggestions to fight a monster as terrifying as the one in the bar if he couldn’t even defend himself against a single minion. He was useless, and the Pine Guard would not even allow him near the battle field to begin with because of his broken leg. Now not only was he a snitch that brought a war upon his friends, he was a liability in that fight.

  
If he had just never been snooping around in the Pine Guard’s business, he would’ve never seen that man turn into that creature. He would’ve never gotten involved with this entire mess, and then maybe the new monster would’ve never targeted the Hornets. It was his fault, he knew it. He was the reason his friends were dead, and that more may die soon.

  
He just couldn’t stay silent when Hollis had asked; it was their right to know what he’d done to bring this upon them. He’d just hoped that it would scare them enough to leave this whole diabolical alone. Even them telling him he was crazy would’ve made things simpler. Their trust ran too deep though. Hollis knew he could never lie to them, the same way he’d known that they would never run away from this. They weren’t a coward, not like he was.

  
Perhaps that’s why he’s out here, looking around for clues. This is where Hollis had said they’d seen the monster, so maybe he could find something that would actually make him more then a deadweight. A small part of him wants to find the monster, to fight it and prove himself, or even just find out more about it. A bigger part of him knows that he stands no chance, the entire gang couldn’t fight it, and he was the weakness link. It would eat him alive.

  
A noise, guttural and inhuman, tears through the air, making every hair of on his body stand on end. He stills, like a frightened doe, as if he wouldn’t be easy to spot with his neon yellow jacket. Another sound follows, a pained sound, and it makes something deep in his chest ache. He recognizes that voice from a time long ago, when he was much younger and the Hornets went by a different name. It was the same sound that Jake had made when he’d taken a ramp just the wrong way and broken his leg in three places. The blonde boy had cried for hours as Keith held his hand, scared that he wouldn’t be able to keep hanging out with the club.

  
Hearing it lit a long forgotten protectiveness in Keith, something that he’d thought he’d let burn out a long time ago. Instead of running away like every part of him is telling him to, he moves forwards, towards the sound. Jake was out here, in pain, and if the monster was responsible, Keith couldn’t let himself allow it to take another one of his… friends. Jake may have left him, but Keith would never forgive himself if he did the same.

  
The weather was taking a turn for the worst, and Keith was beginning to shiver harder, struggling with his crutches to not slip on the ice under foot. He had to get to Jake though, and with reckless bravery, he bursts through the clearing, ready to fight whatever comes his way.

  
Keith doesn’t find a monster. Instead, he only finds Jake. What he doesn’t know, is that in this moment, they are the exact same thing.

  
“Jake,” Keith whispers, voice almost inaudible over the sound of the wind.

  
He immediately realizes his mistake when Jake’s head snaps towards him, frozen in place when he finds that Jake’s eyes were not the familiar icy blue they always were. No, they were nothing but an endless black.  
Around him, there was sharp icicles still jutting from the ground, pocket marks on the ground evidence that something terrible had happened here. Something strong.

  
The blonde jerks to his feet, body moving with an unnatural coordination, like a puppet on a string. As he rose, Keith found himself looking farther up then he’d ever had to. This was not the only difference in Jake’s appearance he realizes with dawning horror. Jake had never been so pale, his hair so white, his nails so long.

  
“No,” Keith gasps, taking one step backwards and falling, unable to find traction of the smoothness of the ice.

  
Sharp pain spreads through his body, a frigid feeling reaching through his clothing and into his bones. His crutches fall from his hands, and he watches in horror as a thick layer of ice grows over them, forcing him to claw his way with bare hands to move backwards. To get away.

  
Jake takes a step forwards, like a warning, or a taunt, and Keith can only gasp his name out pleadingly. Keith wonders with an aching heart if Jake would even be merciful if he does manage to snap out of this, or if Keith had already made too many mistakes for him to forgive. He tries to tell himself that he was being crazy, Jake was too good of a person to hurt anyone intentionally. And yet.

  
Keith train of though doesn’t get a chance to finish because Jake lunges forwards, making him scream. He never reaches Keith though, seeming to hit a wall and fall backwards, knocking himself onto the ground. He hisses a pained noise, spasming with half-aborted movements before his face contorts into something scared.

  
“Run!” Jake cries, eyes a clear, bright white for just a second.

  
Keith does not need to be told twice, using a tree to force himself to his feet. The pain of standing on his bad leg is enough to draw black dots into his vision, make him gasp out a curse. The adrenaline in his veins drives him forwards though, forcing him to move through the throbbing agony, to run. His doctor was going to be so mad later, if he ever made it back to there that is.

  
Behind him, he can hear Jake’s voice calling out to him, but its sharper, twisted. Keith can’t even hear Jake’s words over the roar of his heart in his ears, but he’d never heard him sound so cruel. Never to him, never at all.  
No matter how much he throws himself forwards, struggling over roots and snow, it never seems to be getting further away. It is a haunting sound, like a wolf’s howl signalling a weak prey, dead on its feet. He can’t make himself turn around, even though he knew he would never make it.

  
He was not fast enough, he would never be fast enough.

  
Soon, he recognizes the woods around him, he was so close to Amnesty Lodge, but before he can even scream, the terrain around him changes. The ground beneath him turns to ice, his own speed sending him crashing straight into the path of a towering oak tree, his nose twinging painfully as he hit.

  
He claws himself back to his feet, digging his nails into the bark of the tree to haul his weight back up. All he had do was make it only a few more hundred metres, but then Jake was there, holding him down by the shoulders.

  
“Jake,” Keith gasps, reaching out to grab feebly at the towering figure’s jacket. “Come on, don’t do this.”

  
Jake makes no indication that he heard him, his hands snatching Keith’s wrists to hold him down. Jake is so cold it feels like his hands were made of ice, so unlike the clammy hands Keith remembers holding. He can’t even feel his own hands anymore, and if he looked he would see that a thick frost has settled over them. A frost that was beginning to climb upwards from where Jake was holding onto him. This cold doesn’t stop Keith from talking though, it was a nervous tick he could never grow out of. Something he may never get the chance to grow out of.

  
“It hurts,” he hisses, tears growing cold before they could even reach his cheeks. “Jake you’re hurting me.”


	2. Chapter 2

A shiver racks through Jake’s body at his words, and his hands release, dropping Keith to the ground in a heap. Keith gasps as his leg hits the ice, heading lolling backwards as he struggles not to fall unconscious.

Through his heavy lids, he can see Jake backing away from him like he’s the creature to be feared. Slipping over his own ice, stumbling as his mouth opens as if to scream. No sound escapes though, only a thick, black oil, dripping from his lips like a serpent stretching towards the ground.

  
Keith’s eyes fall closed, entire body shivering as feeling achingly tries to reignite in his arms. Every part of him feels as though it is on fire with pain, and he feels tears slipping from his closed eyes. This was a nightmare, this has to be a nightmare. He can’t even bring himself to move, only lay there where he’d fallen, feeling every bit like the weak man he always knew he was. Faced with a monster and he didn’t even try to fight it, useless.

  
A hand loops under his legs, another around his back in a hold and he tries to scream, throat so raw it is nothing but a hoarse wheeze. These hands do not hurt him though, instead they pull him upwards, against a warm body. A body that feels different, bigger, but smells exactly the same way it always has. Like pine needles and hot chocolate. Like Jake.

  
“I’m sorry,” the blonde sobs, holding Keith against him in an embrace so tight it almost hurts. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

  
Keith can’t say anything at all, just relaxes against Jake’s hold, letting his legs rest on his hips and wrapping his arms around his back. He does not know where the abomination is, but he does not worry about it in this moment. His thoughts of glory were gone, and he’d learn more than he’d ever wanted to about its power. All he wanted now was to go home, to take Jake with him.  
He can’t keep his eyes open though, the cold in his veins making him feel sluggish and distant. Jake was still chanting his apology but it was fading in and out as Keith struggles to stay conscious. Despite Jake’s warmth, he was cold, so cold.

  
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

  
When Keith wakes up next, he is still shivering. But, he wakes up.  
In a chair beside him, Jake is fidgeting, but not looking at him. Instead, he is watching the door, as if he’s expecting someone to burst through and yell at him. Around them, the room is dark, and there is no light coming in from outside. Slowly, as if not to startle him, Keith reaches out to Jake. He cannot feel his arms beneath the elbow other than the hollow chill, and wasn’t even sure if he’d managed to make contact before Jake spins around.

  
They both freeze, and Keith can see that Jake is back to human, looking smaller then he’d ever remembered. Like a wounded animal, shrinking back from Keith like he expected anger. His eyes were a bright blue, glassy and bloodshot, blinking fast to stop the tears. They stare at each other for a moment longer, each waiting for the other to do something.

  
“Jake,” Keith says, so softly he’s almost not even sure he’d said it.

  
Jake swallows, looks away, his breath shaking as he struggles to respond, pressing a hand over his mouth. His voice is thick with emotion when he manages to speak, body shaking as he tries to hold back his tears.

  
“I didn’t mean to,” he gasps, hiccupping around a sob. “I swear, I didn’t want- I mean, I wouldn’t-didn’t mean to- I’m just- I’m just sorry.”

  
“I know,” Keith whispers, reaching out a hand to him. “I know, so am I. For everything. But we’re both still here, Jake. I’m still here. You saved me.”

  
Jake laughs, sharp and painful.

  
“I almost killed you!” he sobs, and the room was dropping beginning to drop in temperature.

  
Keith watches his breath steam in the cold of the room, and forces himself to sit up on the bed. Reaching outwards, he grabs a hold of Jake’s sweater again, this time in the front, around his collar. He can’t feel it, but he forces his fist closed around the fabric.

Pulling, hard, he almost knocks Jake straight off his chair, but it gets his attention. Looking him in the eyes, Keith says softly

  
“You didn’t. Jake, listen to me. You didn’t. You didn’t kill me.”

  
Jake shakes his head, but Keith only tightens his grip. Repeating himself.

  
“You didn’t kill me. I didn’t die.”

  
Jake opens his mouth to say something, but Keith doesn’t even let him start, dragging him forwards and into his arms. Jake doesn’t move for a moment, still in the embrace, and then crumbles, collapsing downwards onto Keith’s chest. It had been years since they’d last hugged properly, and as Jake wraps his arms around his waist, Keith closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath, and knows that they would be okay. Maybe not tonight, but they would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the happy ending, chapter 3 is not a continuation of this but instead an alternate sad one!!


	3. Chapter 3

Jake’s hold eases up and then tightens, closing around Keith’s arms even stronger. A pained noise slips through Keith’s clenched jaw, and despite his straining, he could not wretch himself free. Jake had never been this strong before, he was never weak but had always been lanky, smaller than Keith.

The frost was beginning to crawl up Keith’s biceps like vines, the ice seeping through his skin. It made him feel heavy, like his bones were filled with lead, dragging downwards. If it wasn’t for Jake’s hands keeping him held up, he would’ve collapsed.

  
It dawns on him then that he was dying, that there would be no daring escape or rescue party. He was going to die here, with no one but whatever was left of Jake as his witness.

  
“God,” Keith mumbles, almost delirious. “you know when we were younger?” His eyelids flutter, struggling to stay open. “When… we were kids, and you told me-you told me if I ever got into trouble, I could come to you?” He wheezes a weak breath. “You told me I could trust you to help?”

  
The ice is creeping along his chest now, spreading underneath his jacket like a disease. His breaths are getting slow, and his heart was hardly beating at all. He can’t find it in him to speak for a moment, but with one last exhale he manages to breathe out a weak

  
“Help me.”

  
Before his eyes fall closed, and do not open again.

  
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

  
When Dani explains the situation, the Pine Guard and Hornets mobilize immediately. There was no longer time to spend planning, they had to go now and find Jake before he did something he’d regret. To make matters more dire, no one knew where Keith was and it made Hollis nervous. Keith had been down a lot lately, had always been down since Jake had left the Hornets. They’d tried not to stress about it too much, knew he could handle himself, but they still worried. Like a wounded animal, he’d become sharper, angrier, desperate to prove to everyone, anyone, that he was strong. If he took off alone to fight this thing, they would never forgive him.

  
Dani brought them to the clearing where she’d met Jake, and as soon as Hollis saw the broken wood of Keith’s crutches, their blood ran cold. Without a word to anyone, they fled, following the limping tracks away all the way back to Amnesty Lodge. They knew it was dangerous to go alone, but nothing could stop them from plowing through the snow until they found what they had feared the most.

  
Keith was sitting on the ground, slumped back against an oak tree, paler than Hollis had ever seen. There were signs of a struggle upon a large patch of black ice, but they paid no mind to watch their feet as they scrambled over to his body.

  
“Keith?” Hollis calls, dropping down beside him, grabbing one of his frost bitten hands. “Keith, can you hear me?”

  
The blue of his lips and the frozen streaks of water on his cheeks lend Hollis no comfort. He must have been so afraid, and Hollis hadn’t been there. They hadn’t been there and now he was dead. Keith, their friend, their brother. He was dead and they’d been only a hundred yards away, sipping tea.

  
Hollis presses their shaking fingers to Keith’s neck in some desperate hope, but there was no pulse beneath the thin layer on frost on his neck. A wretched sound tears its way from their throat as they begin to cry, shaken by body racking sobs. They couldn’t hold it together, not even as their tears drip down onto Keith’s still, lifeless chest.

  
“Wake up, Keith,” Hollis begs, cupping his face in their hands the way that used to make him pout like a child. “Please wake up.”

Keith does not wake up. He would never wake up.

  
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

  
After Aubrey draws the abomination from Jake’s body, the battle ends quickly in three violent strikes. The abomination was weak without a host, and Hollis watches as it falls away to dust after a sharp blast of Ned’s gun. They do not feel better when it dies. Its death brings nothing back.

  
A sick part of them wishes that Jake had died with the monster, but instead they have to stand there as the Pine Guard tries to rouse him. Hollis does not move as they do, does not ask why Jake looks the way he does. After a few moments, Jake sits up, grasping his head like he has a painful headache.

  
“Where’s Keith?” Jake whispers, glancing around the clearing with a sort of panicked desperation.

  
The Pine Guard are silent, exchanging grimaces before Aubrey puts on a brave face and takes Jake’s hands into her own.

  
“He didn’t make it,” she murmurs, stroking her thumbs over his hands.

  
Something inside Hollis snaps.

  
“Didn’t make it?” Hollis echoes, practically spitting the words. “He doesn’t deserve that lie!” They take a step forwards, stabbing their bat in his direction. “You killed him, Jake! You hunted him down like a dog and you murdered him with your own hands, you fucking freak!”

  
Duck grabs them when they try to lunge forwards with their bat to take a swing at Jake. He can hardly hold them though, struggling until Ned is forced to join in pull them backwards away from the blonde’s stunned form. Neither of the Pine Guard members could stop them from yelling though.

  
“He was our friend Jake and now he’s dead because you killed him. You killed him. You killed Keith!”

  
They scream it over and over again, until they’re too hoarse to speak. No one stops them. No one has anything to say to a broken person who had lost so much.

  
On the ground, Jake doesn’t try to defend himself. He can’t even move, just sits there in horrified silence, staring at Hollis with big white eyes. He doesn’t even seem aware that he’s crying until the first sob shakes his body, sending him crumpling forwards. He tears his hands from Aubrey’s to drive them over his ears, drawing his knees up and pressing his eyes against them. As if he could black out his vision and no longer see Keith’s terror. The look on his face when he’d realized there was no escape. How he’d begged for Jake to stop anyway, because he’d never give up on Jake. How desperate and scared he’d been.

He’d been so scared.

_Help me._


End file.
